Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/158



She began glibly enough, but even to her simple consciousness the story wavered and rang false, with this stricken, passive man before her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had Uncle Joe really asked this man to get the emeralds? Was it possible that—Lindsay laughed disagreeably.

"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you go home?" he demanded, his eyes still on the revolver.

She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the last brink.

"Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man broke in roughly. "What difference does it make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets done? Have I made you any trouble yet? My goose is cooked, all right, and we'll—we'll talk that over, later, when Missy goes, but—but couldn't you"—he looked almost appealingly at the young fellow,—"couldn't we—it's all there in the suit-case—"

"It was going under my bed Lin—I'd have been careful," Caroline was hoping against hope, now.